Today's society is becoming more health and weight conscious with a large portion of the population having a growing desire to feel and look better. One of the major ways for people to become healthier is for them to get their weight under control. Reducing the amount of calories that is consumed in a day will enable a person to lose weight and thus help that person to become a more healthier and vibrant individual. A large portion of the calories that a person consumes is associated with the amount of fat that is consumed. Hence, by a person reducing the amount of fat that is consumed in a day, he will inevitably reduce the amount of calories that he consumes, and thus he will lose weight and become healthier when combined with a physical fitness program. Not only will a person feel better about himself but he will improve his health by improving his cardiovascular functions. Consequently, a whole new market for no and low-fat products has emerged.
No and low fat foods are synonymous with low calories foods that have been widely advocated as a diet regimen to control excess body weight. One such food is low calorie salad dressing.
In general, salad dressing is an emulsified semisolid food prepared from vegetable oil(s), an acidifying ingredient of vinegar or diluted vinegar optionally mixed with citrus juice such as from lemon or lime, a starchy paste, and an egg yolk containing ingredient such as liquid egg yolks, frozen egg yolks, dried egg yolks, liquid whole eggs, frozen whole eggs, dried whole eggs, or any of the above mentioned ingredients with liquid egg white or frozen egg white. Many other optional ingredients can be added to the salad dressing as long as it does not impart to the salad dressing a color simulating the color imparted by egg yolk. Salad dressing contains not less than 30% by weight of vegetable oil and not less egg containing ingredient than is equivalent in egg solids content to 4% by weight of liquid egg yolks. In the United States, this definition of salad dressing is set forth by the Food and Drug Administration, HHS, Section 169.150 of 21 CFR chapter 1 (4-94 Ed.).
Salad dressing, and salad dressing-like dressings typically contain high amounts of fat in the form of vegetable oil(s). Most recently, an increased interest has been shown in oil-free salad dressing, or what is referred to in the art as pourable dressings. In order to meet the claim of being fat-free, the products must contain less than 1.67% by weight fat or 0.5 grams of fat per tablespoon (30 grams) serving.
Notwithstanding the above, major problems are associated with the production of acceptable fat-free or low fat salad dressings, including the need to impart the creamy mouth feel associated with the high fat content of real salad dressing.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,129,663 discloses a pourable salad dressing containing a mixture of xanthan gum and pectin as stabilizers. U.S. Pat. No. 5,137,742 discloses an approach to making a no and low fat dressing compositions by using uncooked and ungelatinized rice starch with a particular particle size. European Patent Publication 441,495 discloses how an emulsion based on an aqueous phase containing gel forming agents like agar, gelatin, pectin, and/or carrageenan can replace a part of the normally present triglycerides in mayonnaise or salad dressing. The oil phase must contain an emulsifier.
Another approach of making low fat salad dressing is disclosed in European Patent Publication no. 558,113 which discloses an oil-in-water spoonable emulsion with an aqueous phase containing microgels with a mean equivalent diameter of less than 100 microns. The aqueous phase is based on a gelling agent, e.g., pectin, and during the temperature setting, chemical shearing is applied to the product in order to obtain microgels.
Yet another approach of making no or low fat salad dressing is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,324,531 which discloses a no or low oil salad dressing using nonspheroidally shaped carbohydrate gel particles having particular size dimensions. The fat substitute is prepared by making a gel and then by means of shear, breaking the gel into well defined gel particles which will simulate emulsified products like mayonnaise, salad dressing, yoghurt and spreads.
The need still exist in the food industry for an improved fat simulating substance for making no or low fat salad dressing that still has organoleptic characteristics that imitate real salad dressing. The approach of the present invention is to use amidated galacturonic acid methyl esters with a degree of esterification below 55% (hereinafter referred to as "LMA pectin") to replace part or all of the fat in order to make a salad dressing that has organoleptic characteristics that imitate real salad dressing.